What a joke. Poor girl. In fact her man is a headcase with blood on his hands; a liar; a coward; an arrogant thug. What’s more, though she thinks he has chosen her, the truth is she was chosen for him.
You think that isn’t possible? People are just like cards, you know. Pick a card. Any card. And the trick is to make the mark believe that the card he has picked was his choice, his own particular Queen of Spades –
He drives a black Toyota. He uses it to cruise the streets, as he used to do, in the days before. Still thinks of it as before and after – as if such a cataclysmic event could change the predestined orbit of a man’s life, like two planets in collision, which then go off their separate ways.
Of course, that isn’t possible. There is no way to cheat Fate. His crime has become a part of him, like the shape of his face, and the scar on his hand that runs across his heart line, the only physical reminder of that nasty interlude. A shallow cut that healed fast; unlike his victim, poor bastard, who died of a cracked skull a fortnight later.
But of course, Midnight Blue doesn’t think of himself as a murderer. It was an accident, he says; an altercation that got out of hand. He never meant to do it, he says – as if that could somehow raise the dead, as if it makes a difference that he acted on impulse, that he was misled, that he was only twenty-one –
His lawyer was inclined to agree. Cited his mental state, which was poor; claimed there were special circumstances, and finally tried for a verdict of misadventure. A piebald word, half-red, half-black, that smells distinctly fishy to me, and sounds almost as if it could be a name: Miss Adventure, like Boy X, a comic-book adventuress –
Can any sentence compensate for the loss of a human life? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. All those snivelling, wretched excuses. A five-year stretch – much of it spent in the quilted comfort of a psychiatric ward – discharged Midnight Blue’s debt to society – which doesn’t mean to say he was cured; or that he didn’t deserve to die –
Reader, I killed him. I had no choice. That black Toyota was just too alluring. And I wanted something poetic this time: something to mark the victim’s death with a final, triumphant fanfare.
There is a CD deck under the dashboard, on which he likes to play music as he drives. Midnight Blue favours loud bands, rock music that rants and rails. He likes his music noisy, his vocals raucous, the squeal of guitars; likes to feel the deep punch of the bass in his eardrums and that kick of response in his lower belly, like something there could still be alive.
Some might say that, at his age, he ought to have turned down the volume by now; but Midnight Blue knows that rebellion is something born from experience, a lesson learnt the hard way, wasted on adolescents. Midnight Blue has always been a kind of existentialist; brooding on mortality; taking out on the rest of the world the fact that he is going to die.
A small glass jar under the seat is blueeyedboy’s contribution. The rest is all from Midnight Blue: for he is the one who turns up the sound; turns on the heater; drives home in his usual way, by his usual route, at his usual speed. Inside the open jar, a single wasp makes its way sluggishly towards freedom.
A wasp, you say? At this time of year? They are not impossible to find. Under the roof there are often nests, left over from summer, in which the insects lie dormant, waiting for the temperature to rise. Not so hard to climb up there, to ease one out of its padded cell, to transfer it into a glass jar and wait –
The car begins to warm up. Slowly the insect comes to life in an amplified burr of synths and guitars. It crawls towards the source of heat; its stinger begins to pump in time to the rhythm of the bass and drums. Midnight Blue does not hear it. Nor does he see it crawling up the back of the car seat and on to the window, where it slowly unfolds its wings and begins to stutter against the glass –
Two minutes later, the wasp is alert. A combination of music, warmth and light has fully awakened it at last. It takes flight for a moment, hits the glass, rebounds and stubbornly tries again. And then it flies into the windscreen, just at the moment when Midnight Blue approaches the junction, driving with his usual impatience, cursing the other road users, the road, tapping out his frustration on the padded dashboard –
He sees the wasp. It’s instinctive. He raises a hand towards his face. The insect, sensing the movement, veers a little closer. Midnight Blue strikes out, keeping one hand on the steering wheel. But the wasp has nowhere to go. It flies back into the windscreen, where it buzzes balefully. Midnight Blue, panicked now, fumbles for the window controls. He misses, and hits the volume instead, bumping up the sound and –
Wham! The volume kicks up from merely loud to an ear-buzzing burst of decibels; a sudden cataclysm of sound that shocks the steering wheel from his hand, sends it jerking spastically, and as Midnight Blue fights for control he slams right across the two lanes, his car tyres squealing soundlessly across the hard shoulder to hell, to the sound of a wailing wall of guitars –
I like to think he thought of me. Right at that moment, when his head smashed through the windscreen, I like to think he saw something more than just a cartoon trail of stars or the shadow of the Reaper. I’d like to think he saw a familiar face, that he knew in that flashgun moment of death who had murdered him, and why.
Then again, maybe he didn’t. These things are so ephemeral. And Midnight Blue died instantly, or at least within seconds of impact, as the car turned into a fireball, consuming everything inside.
Well – maybe the wasp made it out alive.
It didn’t even sting the guy.
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Captainbunnykiller: And he’s back!!!
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blueeyedboy: Albertine? Is that you?
JennyTricks: (post deleted).
blueeyedboy: Albertine?
7
You are viewing the webjournal of Albertine.
Posted at: 22:46 on Friday, February 15
Status: restricted
Mood: awake
It’s only fiction, he protests. He never murdered anyone. And yet, there they are – his confessions in fic. Too close to be lies, too vile to be real; Valentines from the other side, picture postcards from the dead.
It is only fiction, isn’t it? How could it possibly be anything else? This virtual life is so nicely secure, battened against reality. These virtual friends, too, are safely confined behind this screen, this mouse mat. No one expects to encounter the truth in these worlds we build for ourselves. No one expects to feel it this way, through a glass, darkly.
But blueeyedboy has a special way of shaping the truth to his purpose. He does the same with people, too: winds them up like clockwork toys and sends them crashing into . . .
Walls? Articulated lorries on a busy main road?
Reader, I killed him. What dangerous words. What am I meant to do with them? Does he believe what he’s telling me, or is he just trying to mess with my mind? Nigel drove a black Toyota. And I know the style in which he drove, and his fear of wasps, and his favourite tracks, and the CD deck under the dashboard. Most of all, I remember how much that letter troubled him, and how he set off to his mother’s house to deal with his brother once and for all . . .
Blueeyedboy has been trying to reach me all day. There are five unopened e-mails from him waiting in my inbox. I wonder what he wants from me. Confessions? Lies? Declarations of love?
Well, this time I won’t react. I refuse. Because that’s what he wants. A dialogue. He’s played this game so many times. He admits that he is manipulative. I’ve watched him do it with Chryssie and Clair. He likes to subject them to mind games, to push them into declaring themselves. Thus, Chryssie is besotted with him; Clair thinks she can heal him; Cap wants to be him, and as for myself . . .
What do you want of me, blueeyedbo
y? What kind of reaction do you expect? Anger? Scorn? Confusion? Distress? Or could this be something more than that, some declaration of your own? Could it be that, after watching the world through a glass for so long, you finally, desperately want to be seen?
At ten o’clock the Zebra shuts. I’m always the last one out of the door. I found him waiting for me outside, under the shelter of the trees.
‘Walk you home?’ said blueeyedboy.
I ignored him. He followed me. I could hear his footsteps behind me, as I’ve heard them so many times.
‘I’m sorry, Albertine,’ he said. ‘Obviously I shouldn’t have posted that fic. But you wouldn’t answer my e-mails, and—’
‘I don’t care what you write,’ I said.
‘That’s the spirit, Albertine.’
We walked in silence for a while.
‘Did I tell you I collect orchids?’
‘No.’
‘I’d like to show them to you some day. The Zygopetala are particularly fragrant. Their scent can fill a whole room. Perhaps I could offer you one as a gift. By way of an apology—’
I shrugged. ‘My house plants never survive.’
‘Neither do your friends,’ he said.
‘Nigel’s death was an accident.’
‘Of course it was. Like Dr Peacock’s and Eleanor Vine’s—’
I felt my heart give a sick lurch.
‘You didn’t know?’ He sounded surprised. ‘She passed away the other night. Passed away. What a strange expression. Makes her sound like a parcel. Anyway, she’s dead meat. Poor Terri will be inconsolable.’
We walked in silence after that, crossing Mill Road by the traffic lights, listening as the trees came alive over our heads in the rising wind. No snow this year – in fact it is unusually mild, and the air has a milky quality, as if a storm were coming. We passed by the silent nursery school; the shuttered and empty bakery; the Jacadees’ house, with its scent of fried garlic and yams and roasting chillies.
At last we paused at the garden gate. By then it felt almost companionable: victim and predator side by side, close enough to touch.
‘Can you still do it?’ I said at last. ‘That – you know – that thing you do.’
He gave a short, percussive laugh. ‘It’s not a skill you lose,’ he said. ‘In fact, it gets easier every time.’
‘Like murder,’ I said.
He laughed again.
I fumbled for the catch on the gate. Around me, the milky, troubled air smelt of fresh earth and rotting leaves. I struggled with myself to keep calm, but I could feel myself slipping away, becoming someone else, as I do every time he looks at me.
‘You aren’t going to ask me in? Very wise. People might talk.’
‘Another time, perhaps,’ I said.
‘Whenever you want, Albertine.’
As I moved towards the house I could feel him watching me, sensed his eyes on the back of my neck as I fumbled for the door key. I can always tell when I am being watched. People give themselves away. He was too silent, too motionless, to be doing anything else but staring.
‘I know you’re there,’ I said, without turning round.
Not a word from blueeyedboy.
I was almost tempted to ask him in, then, just to hear his reaction. He thinks I am afraid of him. In fact, the opposite is true. He is like a little boy playing with a wasp in a jar: fascinated, but terribly afraid that at some point the trapped creature will escape its confinement and take revenge. It’s hard to believe, isn’t it, that something so small could inspire such unease? And yet, Nigel, too, was afraid of wasps. Such a little thing, you’d think, to drive a man into a panic. A blob of fuzz; a drone of wings; armed with nothing more than a sting and a tiny amount of irritant.
You think I don’t see how you’re playing me. Well, maybe I see more than you think. I see your self-hatred. I see your fear. Most of all, I see what you want, deep down in your secret heart. But what you want and what you need are not necessarily the same. Desire and compulsion are two different things.
I know you’re still out there, watching me. I can almost feel your heart. I can tell how fast it’s beating now, like that of an animal caught in a trap. Well, I know how that feels. To have to pretend I’m someone else; to live every moment in fear of the past. I’ve lived this way for over twenty years, hoping to be left alone . . .
But now I’m ready to show myself. At last, from this dried-up chrysalis, something is about to emerge. So – if you’re as guilty as you say, you’d better run, while there’s still time. Run, like the helpless rat you are. Run as far and as fast as you can –
Run for your life, blueeyedboy.
8
You are viewing the webjournal of blueeyedboy.
Posted at: 23.18 on Saturday, February 16
Status: restricted
Mood: cynical
Listening to: Wheatus: ‘Teenage Dirtbag’
I told you before. Nothing ends. Nothing really begins either, except in the kind of story that starts with Once upon a time, long, long ago, and in which, in blatant defiance of the human condition, they all live happily ever after. My tastes are rather more humble. I’d settle for outliving Ma. Oh, and the chance to stamp on those dogs. That’s all I’ve ever wanted. The rest of them – my brothers, the Whites, even Dr Peacock – are simply the icing on the cake; a cake long past its sell-by date, and sour under the frosting.
But before I can hope for forgiveness, I have to make the confession. Perhaps that’s why I’m here, after all. This screen, like that of the confessional, serves a double purpose. And yes, I’m aware that the fatal flaw in most of our fictional bad guys is that common desire to confess; to strut; to reveal to the hero his master plan, only to be foiled at last –
That’s why I’m not going public on this. Not yet, anyway. All of these restricted posts are accessible only by password. But maybe later, when it’s done and I’m sitting on a beach somewhere, drinking Mai Tais and watching the pretty girls go by, I’ll mail you the password; I’ll give you the truth. Maybe I owe you that, Albertine. And maybe one day you’ll forgive me for everything I did to you. Most likely you won’t. But that’s OK. I’ve been living with guilt for a long time. A little more won’t kill me.
Things really began to fall apart the summer that followed my brother’s death. A long and turbulent summer, all dragonflies and thunderstorms. I was still only seventeen, a month from my eighteenth birthday, and the weight of my mother’s attention now sat like a permanent thundercloud over my life. She had always been demanding. Now that my brothers were out of the way, she was viciously critical of every little thing I did, and I dreamed of running away, like Dad –
Ma had been through a difficult patch. The business with Nigel had done something to her. Nothing you would have noticed at first; but living with her as I did, I knew that all was not right with Gloria Green. It had started with lethargy at first; a slow, dull state of recovery. She would sit staring into space for hours; would eat whole packets of biscuits; would talk to people who weren’t there; or sleep away whole afternoons before going to bed at eight or nine . . .
Grief sometimes does that to you, Maureen Pike explained to me. Of course, Maureen was in her element then, coming to see us every day, bringing home-made cakes and sound advice. Eleanor, too, offered support, recommending St John’s Wort and group therapy. Adèle brought gossip and platitudes. Time heals all things. Life must go on.
Tell that to the cancer ward.
Then, as the summer waned, Ma had entered another phase. The lethargy had given way to a manic kind of activity. Maureen explained the phenomenon, which she said was called displacement; and welcomed it as necessary to the healing process. At that time, Maureen’s daughter was doing a degree in psychology, and Maureen had embraced the world of psychoanalysis with the same self-important, lolloping zeal she gave to church fêtes, Junior Fun Days, collections for the elderly, her book group, her work at the coffee shop and ridding Malbry of paedophiles.<
br />
In any case, Ma was busy that month: working five days on the market stall, cooking, cleaning, making plans, ticking off time like an impatient schoolmistress – and, of course, keeping an eye on Yours Truly.
I’d had an easy time until then. For nearly a month, enshrouded with grief, she’d barely even noticed me. Now she made up for that in spades: questioning my every move; making the vitamin drink twice a day and worrying about everything. If I coughed, she assumed I was at death’s door. If I was late, I’d been murdered or mugged. And when she wasn’t fretting over all the things that might happen to me, she was rigid with fear over what I might do – that I’d find myself in trouble, somehow, that she’d lose me to drink, or drugs, or a girl –
But there was no escape for blueeyedboy. Three months had passed since the incident when Ma had hit me with the plate, and after Nigel failed her, Ma’s obsession with success had grown to monstrous proportions. I’d missed my school exams, of course; but an appeal by Ma (on compassionate grounds) had earned me a review of my case. Malbry College was where she believed I should continue my studies. She had it all planned out for me. A year to re-sit those exams; and then I could start afresh, she said. She’d always dreamed of one of her boys entering the medical profession. I was her only hope, she said; and with a ruthless disregard for my wishes – indeed, for my ability – she began to mark out my future career.
I tried to argue with her at first. I had no qualifications. Besides, I wasn’t cut out for medicine. Ma was saddened, but took it well – or so I thought in my innocence. I’d expected an outburst at the very least; one of Ma’s violent attacks. What I got was a week of redoubled affection and lavishly home-cooked dinners – always my favourites – which she laid on the table with the virtuous air of a long-suffering guardian angel.
Soon after that I fell violently ill, with acute stomach cramps and a fever that brought me to my knees. Even to sit up in bed was to precipitate the most awful spasms of pain and vomiting, and to stand – still less to walk – was wholly out of the question. Ma cared for me with a tenderness that might have made me suspicious if I hadn’t been suffering so much. Then, after almost a week, she reverted suddenly to type.
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